Sign of the Times
by ddaniellevieira
Summary: After the fight with Chuck on his birthday party, Jughead left behind an alone Betty Cooper inside Archie's house. Alice Cooper and FP Jones talk to them, trying to make them understand what they were abandoning and without realising they drift down memory lane. After old papers are found, Betty and Jughead discover some odd information about their parents younger years.
1. Chapter 1

Outside, FP Jones was talking to his son, while Betty Cooper was waiting, sat on the couch of Archie's house. She was tightening her fists the harder she could, feeling the flesh underneath her nails burning. She dreaded that Jughead wouldn't come back and everything they had build would have an end right there, all because of Chuck Clayton. Time didn't seem to pass, then, she heard a noise on the front door and got up immediately.

"I'm so sorry, Betty." - She heard FP saying, entering the house, alone. Betty tried to wipe her tears and nodded her head, accepting she had lost.

"Betty, you can stay here if-…" - Archie tried to comfort her, but she interrupted him before he could finish his sentence.

"It's okay, Arch. I think it's better I go home, see you tomorrow." - Betty hugged him briefly and walked with FP towards the porch.

"Betty…" - FP called her as soon as she started heading home. She crossed her arms and turned around to face him. He looked uncomfortable, his hands deep inside his pocket jeans, his jaw was clenched, his feet unstable. He sighed before continuing to speak. "Please, don't give up… don't give up on Jughead. Even if right now it seems there's no coming back. You guys are young, but youth drains fast and time pass quickly in this age. - his tone was nostalgic as he was hurting from his own words. The girl snuff before asking confused - "What do you mean?" - she took a step forward.

"Just… just take this piece of advice from this old man; Jughead is a good boy and he cares about you. Love isn't an easy feeling, but if you feel like that about my son, don't give up. I did it once." - He answered, leaving his words blowing on the wind without saying anything else. And Betty just stood there, on the porch, noticing how his voice was full of remorse, dazed, trying to make sense out of everything it had happened that night and how fast things can change. Had she lost Jughead forever? Was it now the time she would withdrawn?

[...]

Far away from there, inside his trailer, FP Jones tried to drown his memories on alcohol, all those memories which wouldn't stop haunting him that night. Betty Cooper was the copy of a once young Alice: beautiful, intelligent and determined. He still remembered how was Alice's smile when she was seventeen years old, when the two of them still dreamed about their futures. He remembered her on her yellow uniform from Pop's, her hair loose in a ponytail and the pen she would write down quick orders laying behind her ear. She was quite the view, and even twenty years after, he was still able to remember the strawberry scent from her hair, mixed with the nicotine of his cigarettes and both of them leaving Pop's on his old pickup truck he had inherited from his grandfather. That night FP had to drink two bottles so the image of Alice Cooper could leave his mind.

At the empty Cooper's residency, Alice stared at her bedroom's ceiling she once used to share with Hal. She was trying to come up with a way to help her daughter. But how could she? Twenty years ago she was the one running away from the love of her life. That must be something running on their family genes.

So long had passed and now history was repeating itself. Twenty years later and FP Jones still tormented her, and he was even more present on her mind nowadays that he was once upon a time.

She cried herself to sleep that night. She cried because she felt overwhelmed. She cried because she had so many mixed emotions on her mind. She cried because her life was falling apart. She cried because she knew things could have been different - but that was a selfish thought - and at last, she cried because she couldn't believe, after all that time and everything she was still in love with Forsythe Pendleton.

[...]

It was monday morning, third period, when Alice Cooper strutted inside the room of the Blue and Gold and found a Jughead Jones deepened in a chair, his computer in front of him. The page white blanc, he couldn't write, all of his thoughts were directed only towards Betty Cooper and a bit towards the disastrous weekend he had experienced.

"Betty didn't come today." - he told Alice, watching her sit in front of him and put her bag on the table. Alice stared at him and gave the boy a weak smile.

"I came to talk to you." - her tone wasn't threatening, but that didn't keep Jughead for going full defensive. Everything he wanted less right now was to quarrel with his former mother-in-law.

"Mrs. Cooper, I…" - he didn't finish his sentence, Alice motioned her hand shushing him.

"Jughead, have you ever asked yourself why nowadays I haven't been easy on accepting Archie or Veronica, but had no problem liking you?" - she asked, folding her arms on the table and facing the boy with a friendly expression. Jughead sighed.

"I wouldn't use the word 'like'..." - Jughead said it back sarcastically, making Alice roll her eyes.

"I like you because I've been you, Jughead. It may not seem now, but I was also from the South Side and I know what it's like to grow on one of those trailers, being surrounded by the South Side Serpentes and crave that life was more than that filthy trailer park. - Alice said each word with an embittered expression, as if it was painful to remember the past. Jughead stared at her petrified. _The_ Alice Cooper was from the wrong side of the tracks?

"I saw my mother leave too." - she continued to speak, her voice lowering word by word. - "and I was smart just like you are, I had bigger dreams than that place, that's why I know that you are good, Jughead, and that you don't need to follow your father's path, but I also know what it's like to run away from a great love. Betty truly likes you. Learn from my mistakes, Jughead. Please, don't run away from it. Don't run away from Betty." - with a choked voice, Alice begged. Silence prevailed between the two of them, until she decided was time to leave.

Jughead didn't dare to answer anything, he just standed still, frozen, lost on his thoughts, watching Alice Cooper leave. What the hell had just happened?


	2. Chapter 2

Betty had skipped class that monday morning, she was too embarrassed to face Jughead. What would she say if she encounter him? How would she solve things? He didn't even wanted to hear her after the fight, nor could FP convince him.

Alone at home, she was still crying about that night's events. Chuck Clayton had exposed her deepest secret and now everyone knew that part of her, the part Betty was ashamed of. Her dark side, the one she could not control it.

The palms of her hands were burning. She no longer knew what to do. She had lost herself.

It was after ten in the morning when she decided she needed to do something to distract herself before her thoughts drove her crazy. Betty put on her shoes and decided to look in the basement for something to do. As a child, she and Polly loved spending time finding their parents' antiques **,** making up stories with the items they found.

Back in the basement, Betty began rummaging through the places she could not reach as a child, places where her mother kept things she did not want to find again.

There, among dusty shoe boxes and old sheets, Betty found a hardcover book, it has already yellowed pages, hidden in the bottom of the last shelf. When she took it in her hands, she noticed a padlock locking it's pages. She frowned, was it a diary? Alice's, maybe?

Encouraged by the possible mystery, Betty Cooper wiped the dust off the cover of the journal with her sweater and sprinted back to her room. It was there, between the pillows in her bed, that Betty discovered a story she had never dreamt to exist. A great love story, almost unbelievable.

That was Alice's diary, and it's pages were filled with Forsythe Pendleton Jones II.

 _January 13, 1997_

 _Dear Diary,_

 _I'm so happy I finally got the waitress job at Pop's, it's nighttime, so it pays well. It is very comforting to know that I am far from the place I am obliged to call home, but it also means less time with FP. He also works at night on the Twilight Drive on Thursdays and Fridays, and during the afternoon he helps Fred's parents with the family business. So we'll only see each other at school, but it will be worth it._

 _Our dreams are finally becoming true._

 _We're going to get out of here. I know it._

 _May 22, 1997_

 _Dear Diary,_

 _I'm so tired! Working at Pop's takes all my energy, and I have to work hard to get good grades aswell, without them I'll never be able to get into the journalism course I desire so much. Hermione says I have to get lighter, but how? I need the damn money. We need._

 _FP got a scholarship in Notre Dame! He always been too smart for a small town like Riverdale. We're going together, it's our chance, but FP is being surrounded by the Serpents again, and I'm afraid he'll do something wrong._

 _August 6, 1997_

 _My mother left. She didn't say goodbye. She left me alone like I was an old disposable furniture. I didn't cry, I just stood there watching her leave through the night._

 _She was the last one to leave me, now there is only FP left._

 _We were both constantly abandoned, but will we one day abandon each other as well?_

 _August 22, 1997_

 _FP and I had a fight because of Hal Cooper._

 _When will Forsythe realize that I have zero interest in these boys?_

 _FP is my past, my present and also my future._

 _I love him so much that it hurts in my chest. It is possible to love somebody that much?_

 _September 9, 1997_

 _FP is sleeping by my side, his face looks so much younger when he's relaxed, not thinking about our problems. His handsomeness leaves me breathless._

 _I love him._

 _October 18, 1997_

 _Our fights are constant; FP wants to accept the business with the Serpents. He wants to make a delivery on their behalf and get the money we need to leave Riverdale._

 _I'm afraid of losing him._

A noise in the front door made Betty Cooper hide the diary under the mattress of her bed, hurriedly, she wiped away the tears streaming down her face and rushed into the bathroom. She tried to calm herself, but her heart was pounding in her chest, the sensation was almost painful. Her mother did not love her father, she loved another man. FP Jones, Jughead's father, member of the Southside Serpents, the misfit from the wrong side of the tracks.

Her mother loved a Jones.

The panic attack came without Betty being able to fight it. She slipped to the floor, her body was trembling and her hands were ice cold. She could barely breathe. Her sobbing filled the empty bathroom for until there were no more sounds. She fainted.

[...]

When she woke up, Betty was back on her bed with her mom massaging her feet.

"Mom?" - She asked.

"Honey! Have you had your pills today?" - Alice asked, approaching Betty and holding her hands.

"Yes." - Betty lied. "It was just a drop of pressure, I haven't eaten today." - She said, sitting up in bed and smiling weakly at Alice.

"Well, I'll make you a nice lunch, then." - Alice said, winking at Betty and walking out of the room.

Betty waited for lunch to be ready and forced herself to eat with Alice without asking her about what she had just discovered, she knew that her mother would lie, or even say that Betty was hallucinating. Then, after Alice got back to work, Betty took the diary and put it in her backpack along with her things, grabbed a jacket and went to the construction site on the Drive-In land.

She needed to talk with FP Jones.

[...]

"Mr Jones?" The melodious voice of Betty Cooper startled FP at first. He turned to face the girl, who looked paler than usual.

"Hey, Betty." - He replied, taking off his helmet and walking alongside the girl towards the trailer.

"Can we talk?" - Betty asked, standing in front of FP.

"Is it about Jughead? Look, I… " - He stopped talking as Betty removed the blue notebook from her backpack and showed him. FP held the material in his hands, overwhelmed.

Of course he remembered that diary. How could he forget, if he was the one that had given it to Alice, twenty years ago.

"Can we talk?"- Betty asked again, getting only a head shake back. FP was still staring at the blue cover. Twenty years later, but it still seemed like yesterday. Her scent was still there, the glance of her smile and all the memories one day they had shared together.

[...]

"You read it?"- FP asked, back in his trailer, sitting in his armchair.

"Just a few parts, the beginning mostly..." - Betty replied, sitting uncomfortably on the couch. "I just need to know what ..." before Betty could continue, FP stood up suddenly.

"You didn't tell this to Jughead, did you?" - FP asked, taking the diary in his hands. Betty shook her head. "Shit, this cannot be happening, so long after..." - FP grunted, his face sinking into his hands, his expression in pure sorrow. Betty felt bad for him.

"I'm sorry; I just need to know the truth." - Betty was sincere, looking up at FP. They stared at each other for a moment, until, without saying anything, he left the room and returned short after, holding what seemed to be letters.

"If you want to know the story, at least know all parts of it." - He said, handing the papers to Betty.

"What are these letters?" - Betty asked, picking up a sheet of paper.

"They're not letters, they're lyrics ... Songs, poems ... I don't know, I was never good with words like your mother, but I tried to say ... Explain what it felt like." - He answered, taking a bottle of whiskey and throwing himself back into the chair, drinking the liquid from the bottle.

"You can keep it. I don't want it anymore." - It was the last thing he said before he broke off. Betty was silent, alternating glances between the papers on her lap and her father-in-law. Then she decided it was time to leave and on the way home, unable to help herself, she read one of the sheets.

 _"Under the diner neon lights_

 _she smiled at me_

 _And for a few seconds_

 _Before everything turned to ashes_

 _The whole world became_

 _A good place to live…"_


End file.
